100 Francs 2nd series, type 2

The Swiss National Bank's relationship with Waterlow & Sons was a practical wartime contingency that outlasted the emergency. Switzerland had turned to the London firm after domestic and continental printing options became unreliable during and after the First World War, and the arrangement continued well into the 1920s. For a country with strong opinions about quality and precision, outsourcing note production to a foreign printer was not a trivial decision.

Ferdinand Hodler had died in 1918, five years before this note entered circulation. The designs bearing his name were commissioned earlier and adapted posthumously — he never saw them on issued paper.